zeebob

This blog is dedictated to our son, Zander.

Monday, January 29, 2007

Peanut

A few weeks ago I lifted the ban on peanut butter. THEY say children under the age of two should not eat peanuts - not to prevent allergy but to have the child be physically large enough that should he or she prove allergic, their little bodies can better deal with a reaction. Fine. But no one we are related to is allergic to peanuts (that we know of) and most of the allergies that do exist are environmental.

Also, we have not perhaps been the most persnickety and/or careful about keeping peanut content away from Zander. We love our Vietnamese food and homemade stir fries with peanuts. Picking the nus out for Z seemed . . . silly. Since we all know the peanut oil leached out and onto the food.

Then I was telling myself I had to be careful because peanuts were a CHOKING HAZARD! Meanwhile, I am giving him children's chewable vitamins at breakfast every morning. "Bite your vitamin, Zander!" "Crunch, crunch." (BTW, he knows "bite" because that's what he likes to do to me when he gets really worked up and I have to tell him to stop.)

Okay, so a peanut does not have the same dissolving capability that a chewable vitamin does but it came to me that if the only thing I was really worried about was him choking on the peanut, then why was I depriving my son of one of childhood's joys.......peanut butter???

I have pictures of his first PBJ experience but they're on the other computer. Well, you can imagine it - these pictures look like all the other pictures of Zander eating food.

So I mentioned recently that Zander was sick? Now that I am coming down with something myself, Zander is starting to perk up. For a week or two or three he's been eating about two bites of food a day. It makes me crazy but I don't want to start the food wars, so if he doesn't eat what I give him (provided that is reasonable to start with) then he gets down from his seat and maybe eats more at the next meal. Maybe.

Today Zander ate three bowls of frosted shredded wheat. A day ago he was practically throwing his bowl at me because he was mad that we didn't have Cheerios. At lunch he ate a dozen or more crackers with peanut butter, a whole pickle, and carrot sticks. And drank lots of milk. I suppose that sounds like a normal toddler meal to you but really, he's been eating like half a carrot stick at lunch! This is tremendous!

Now for dinner I made Uncle Andy's Bolognase - one of my personal favorites. Matt enjoyed it as well, despite the zucchini. Zander...well, I think he was still in fast forward from all the other calories. He vibrated in his chair and elaborately attempted to stab noodles. Not so much with the eating, sadly.

Since I am lacking decent illustrations today, I leave you with a picture taken with my MacBook's built in camera just the other day. The quality is not great but you can't beat the convenience.


(Talk about the camera adding ten pounds.
Zander's cheeks aren't that jowly anymore.)

Thursday, January 25, 2007

Out Sick

(Which is not meant to imply an excuse for not posting more often here. There's no excuse for that.)

Zander's had a beastly cold this week. All runny nose and hacking coughs. Poor baby. Err, toddler. He's pretty good with a tissue and can even sorta ask for one in a whiny sick kid kind of way. Doesn't know how to blow his nose and the Internets tell me he won't for 2 more years. Since I won't put either of us through a saline nose drops treatment, I just say "oh poor baby" and hug him and go change my shirt - without complaint! - for the third time that day because I've been used as a Kleenex and the big glob of snot is too gross for even me to just scrape off and keep going (this is all provided I don't have to leave the house - you stay at home types know what I'm talking about, uh huh).

Last weekend was pretty rockin'. Zander's Aunt Chrissi got married to his now Uncle Justin. We were totally lucky in finding a hand-me-down baby suit-thing in the closet. It was a once piece consisting of slacks, button down shirt, and vest. ONE PIECE. Kind of a genius in fabric engineering really. We did have to trade three cases of soda for a pair of shoes that didn't involve velcro to complete the ensemble. He was sharp though, that baby of ours.

We only have about four pictures of him from the wedding - until the honeymooners come home and share their photographic loot. Here he is dancing with his Great-Grandpa Russ:



And another cute photo I found whilst emptying the CF card... I finished a handknit baby kimono yesterday for my new cousin, Caitlyn, born just last week (Congrats Pat & Tanya!). I tried the kimono on Zander's baby doll because I wanted to take pictures and see how it fit something roughly newborn sized. But Zander cried out at the sight of his doll dressed up and snatched it from me.



I believe we are observing here the kiss of death. Immediately after this photo, he ripped the kimono off and heaved a sigh of relief. That's okay, we wouldn't want Zander and his baby to get too attached to that kimono. I'm not so crazy yet that I want to knit things for Zander's toys to wear. As we saw in the last post, nekkid is in.

Sunday, January 14, 2007

Nekkid



Yep, Zander figured out this morning how to take his shirt off. Let the nekkid years begin!